Before we adopted and gave birth, we sat in foster licensing classes. In those classes, we learned that some people are mean to babies. Of course, everyone knows that there are moms and dads who are horribly cruel to their children, parents who do unspeakable things to their children. That is the main reason that children end up in the foster system. What we didn’t know is what we learned next: that STRANGERS are sometimes mean to babies AFTER they are adopted. This was a little hard to believe. We listened and I made a mental note to practice comebacks so I’d be ready and know what to say when I encountered one of these people.
Question: “Is that baby yours?” Response: “No, I found her wandering in the parking lot and decided to take her home.”
Question: “Do all your kids have the same father?” Response: “Yes. Do yours?”
Question: “Do you run a daycare?” Response: “No, I smuggle children for the Russian Mafia. I’m on my way to a drop-off.”
Question: “Did you adopt her from here?” Response: “No, she is an intergalactic traveler stuck in a time warp. We are putting her up until we can contact her fleet and return her to her alien species.”
Question: “Where did she come from?” Response: “Well, one night 2 people had sex, and a sperm and an egg hooked up.”
I could go on and on.
The thing is, this is Southern California. If America is the melting pot, Southern California is the blender. We have our pockets of people who have a problem with weird things like whose birth canal a child slid out of and whether a kid’s DNA matches the DNA of their parents, but most people get it that adoption is a really amazing thing, and a lot of people do it here. And then there are those who don’t get it. They have hang-ups about things like adopted children, particularly if those children happen to have skin that is more populated by melanin deposits than the parents who have adopted them.
In my experience, people who care about this are both black and white. What black people care about, in my experience, is that a little girl with dark skin is calling a person with lighter skin Mamma. What white people care about, in my experience, is their misconception that a child who has been adopted is necessarily a terrible person, headed for prison, a danger to their own children, a danger to the adopted child’s non-adopted siblings. Oh, and they could NEVER adopt. It’s just not something they can do.
And people believe that they have some kind of right and reason to comment on what they care about – in front of the adopted child.
Now, most people believe it is bad manners, at the very least, to go up to a parent of a child who is fat and say, in front of the child, “Can I ask you a question? Is that your child? (yes) Did you know your child is fat? Did you know that being fat means that they are not sexy or attractive to most people? Did you know that they are also way less likely to be healthy, and will probably die earlier? Did you know that, in general, we skinny folk eat less and exercise more and that as how we stay skinny, and your kid should eat less and be skinny as well? You should make your fat kid more like us skinny folk, and I’ll happily help you in any way I can!”
Most people also think it is bad manners, at the very least, to go up to a fat parent of a skinny child and say, “Can I ask you a question? Is that skinny child yours? (yes) Well I am skinny like your child and so I have special understanding our kind that you don’t have. Did you know that a skinny child needs to stay on a healthy diet and exercise a lot to stay skinny? We skinny folk understand this, and you are fat, so you obviously don’t know how to deal with a skinny child. Give me your phone number and I’ll call you and mentor you in how the skinny folk culture lives so your child will know how to act as she grows up. ”
Nobody does this.
However, at least once a month I encounter a person with no adopted children who is happy to tell me, in front of my 5-year-old adopted baby (The Little Magpie) a) how impressed they are that she is so well behaved, as she is obviously adopted, because they have known someone who told them, or heard somewhere, that adopted children, especially black adopted children, are a handful and end up in trouble and in prison, and b) that they can assure me that they do NOT think my black adopted child will end up in prison because I am obviously a super mom who was able to break her of her horribly black, adopted ways. My 5-year-old hangs on every word. I spend the next week mopping up the mess.
I also encounter, as often, a black woman who is happy to tell me, in front of my 5-year-old adopted baby, a) how sad it is that a black child has to grow up in a white family (The stranger passes by, stares at The Little Magpie, smiles sympathetically, and usually says something like, “Hello, my baby!” The Little Magpie HATES this. It makes her feel weird. The woman usually turns to me, then, and says, “Can I ask you a question? (sure) Is this your child? (yes) Is she adopted? (yes) How sad that they chose a white family over a black family for her! But she looks like she is doing all right?”) or b) how terrible they think her hair looks.
Now, I have researched black hair. I have taken classes on black hair. I have asked literally dozens of women how to take care of hair and which products to use. I have worked with The Little Magpie’s hair for 5 years. I have tried every product under the sun (well, at least a LOT of them!) I know something, although not everything, about black hair. I know there are as many recognized hair types for black people as there are for white people. I know that depending on your hair type, you need to use certain products, just like white people do. My own daughter has a very desirable hair type in the black community, except for one thing. It has a red tint. Now, there are at least 3 reasons a black person’s hair will be tinted red: 1) their hair is dry, 2) their hair has been color treated, or 3) they have a natural red tint to their hair. The little Magpie’s hair is incredibly soft, curly, and naturally tinted red because she’s not 100% black.
There is something else I know about black hair. I know that it is cutting edge these days for black women to “go natural” and let their tresses do as they will. Relaxers and straighteners and all those chemicals and extensions are recognized as not only bad for one’s hair, but bad for one’s health. The TTA/TWA (Teeny Tiny Afro/Teeny Weeny Afro) is “in” because people are shaving their heads, getting rid of all that chemical-laden hair, starting over. Again, we live in So. Cal. where natural is awesome. People are into urban farming here. People use soft-soled shoes on their kids, if they use shoes at all. People shop at health food stores and buy organic and belong to CSA’s. People have chickens in their back yards. Not everybody is like this, but it is common enough that it is seen as acceptable, and yes, normal. These all-natural people are usually under the age of 50, and even more commonly under the age of 40, and they were raised in a different world than the 50 and over crowd. It’s okay to be different. It’s okay to let your hair down. It’s okay to go barefoot.
Now, I get it that there are people who moved here from out of state who have not yet been caught by the blades of the So. Cal. blender. But we natives make allowances for them. They are cool. They’ll come over to our side one day, and if they don’t, they are still cool. We like people who are different.
Until they are mean to our babies.
Today I overheard a conversation. A woman walked into the Kinkos where we were making copies, and she was on the phone. She saw us, stopped in front of The Little Magpie, and said, “Hello, my baby!” The little Magpie didn’t miss a beat. She turned to me and almost yelled, “Why do people who look that way stare at me and call me their baby? I don’t like it!” (“people who look that way” are black people, BTW.) I said what I always say, “Well, it is because they think you are beautiful.” The Little Magpie went back to playing, clearly annoyed by both this woman, and my response, and I continued to make copies. What happened next was typical of these encounters. She went back to her phone conversation, and it went something like this:
“There is this little girl here…it’s so sad…she’s wearing torn clothes…she’s with a white lady…she looks so angry…her hair is not braided…well I’m going to say something about it…I’m not going to let this go…this is just wrong…”
Now, The Little Magpie was indeed wearing a skirt that had a tear in it. It’s one of her favorite skirts, and I have tried multiple times to throw it away, but each time she begs me to let her wear it just one more time. I relent. After all, it is her skirt, and I was small once, and endured the sadness of clothes disappearing from my closet. The Little Magpie was otherwise neatly dressed. She usually is. She had a brand new T-shirt on and really cute brand new designer sandals. The tear is about 1″ long, and other than that, the skirt is perfect.
And of course she looks angry. She is angry at YOU, lady!
And her hair. Her hair was in a ponytail when we left the house. I had washed it and neatly put it up the night before. It was nice this morning. However, when I went to smooth it down when we were standing in line at the store, she asked that her hair be let loose, and she brushed it herself. I am so happy that The Little Magpie is so independent. If she wants her hair loose, curls tossed by the wind, I will let her have it that way. It is her hair. She is learning to manage it on her own. She makes all kinds of wild hair-do’s, and she loves her creations. We have looked at pictures in black hair magazines over the years, and she invariably wants the full on Afro look over any braided, straightened, or relaxed look. And it’s our favorite look on her. Within the bounds of reason, I believe a child ought to have a say in the way she dresses and the way her hair looks. The Little Magpie looks around her, observes the hair of other black kids, and if she likes a look, and if it does not involve the use of chemicals, I’ll work her hair into that look. I am pretty darn good at those braided looks! I always ask her what she wants after her bath when we brush her hair. Tonight she asked for 2 french braids. Friday she asked to leave it out, and I convinced her to let me put it up in a ponytail. She took the ponytail out, and it’s her hair, so that’s fair. She can take it out.
If I try to explain these things to the women (always black) who take it upon themselves to direct me in her hair care, they invariably tell me, “You have to tell her that we do our hair this way and you don’t let her choose on her own.” Wait, “we?” Who is this “we” you speak of? You mean black people? That’s just not true. In fact, many people the world over who have “black” skin do NOT straighten, extend, and relax their hair like you do. It is false that this is the way “we” live, and it is false that it is even how “we” live in general.
But, it’s not about hair. It never is. I’ve come to this conclusion over the past 5 years. It’s about something else, and I don’t pretend to know what it is in every case. I can guess, though. I suspect it is about a white family adopting a black baby, and raising that baby to be free as a bird, within our moral and religious framework. What my life looks like, the way we live, looks quite different than the lives of most people we live around. We have an urban farm. Our kids hardly ever wear shoes. We home school. The Little Magpie learns Latin and Spanish in school. She memorizes poetry and Scripture and history. She is 5 and reads books meant for 2nd and 3rd graders. She can sit through a reading of Treasure Island and can follow the story and understand what is going on. She’s not raised the same way “they” are probably raising their children. Why do I say this? Well, we also know people who have “black” skin who think nothing of our adopting The Little Magpie. They are happy to answer questions I have about what I should do with her skin or hair, or even whether I should be teaching her more about “black” culture. Beyond that, they don’t bug me. They look beyond their prejudices about interracial families. So you have at least 2 types of people, and only the latter asks intrusive questions and makes intrusive comments: people who live a more alternative lifestyle, of one type or another, like we do, and those who live in the mainstream. And those who live in the mainstream. Those who live in the mainstream tend to very uncomfortable with those who do not, and tend to say terrible things to people who are different than them. So it’s not that black people say mean things to The Little Magpie. It is that certain types of black people say mean things to The Little Magpie. In the same way, it is not that white people are mean to The Little Magpie. It is that certain types of white people say mean things about The Little Magpie.
I suspect it is more than that, though. I suspect that a person who is willing to rail on me because The Little Magpie is clearly from a home different than theirs is a person who is guilty that they did nothing about the situation we have in America today. It is a fact that there are not as many black families willing to adopt as there are black children waiting for an adoptive home. It is a fact that white families ask for white babies more often than they are open to adopting whatever kid happens to be ready for adoption at that time. There are way more white people who want to adopt a white kid than white kids ready for adoption. People are picky. They tend to be into their own DNA. They are into their own skin color. They think there is some difference between them and “the other.” They are wrong. Everyone is wrong. Black people are wrong. They ought to be adopting more, and they ought to be happy whenever ANY child is adopted by a loving family, regardless of the color of everyone’s skin. White people are wrong, as well. They ought to understand that a child is a child, and their skin color is not what makes that child lovable. They are all wrong when they say, “I can’t adopt THAT! I could not love it if it were not my own. And THAT is prone to become a bad person despite my efforts.” No, you CAN adopt that. You CAN love it BECAUSE it IS your own. And IT is no more likely to be a bad apple than your own, precious, DNA-approved child that came from your own, amazing, unmatchable uterus. You ought to tell the truth. You WON’T adopt THAT. You WON’T love THAT as your own. You are better than THAT. You would not be able to show your proud face to your friends if your adopted kid happened to turn out bad. They are also all wrong when they say “YOU should not adopt THAT! That is one of US!” The truth is, “THAT” IS “US”!!! A human being is a human being. Our physical differences are just that, and if you believe that “you are not your body,” and focus on a person’s soul, then it becomes clear that DNA and the color of a person’s skin are irrelevant when it comes to one’s ability to love as a parent.
The weird thing is that it took me a while to get used to The Little Lion when he was born. He just didn’t look right. It was a very odd sensation to look at my newborn son and see so much bleached skin and glacial eyes staring back at me. He seemed sickly, like he need a good suntan to really survive in the world. At that moment, it occurred to me that I actually didn’t notice the color of The Little Magpie’s skin. She is one of us. She is our family, our first born, our pride and joy. Now, I DO notice it in the sense that I see her and I know my colors. Her skin is darker than mine. However, when my kids tumble into a pile while they play, it never crosses my mind that one of these children did not come from my body or is darker than the others. In fact, it has gotten to the point that I forget that she did NOT come from my body. I will mistakenly say things like “when The Little Magpie was born,” and then I have to stop and realize that what I mean is “when she came to live with us.” This kind of experience is very normal in the adoptive parent population. It is unfathomable that they would be anything BUT yours. It is truly as if they came from your body.
People don’t get this. Regular black people don’t get this. Regular white people don’t get this. People who have adopted get this. People who approach adopted kids and their families as if the child were somehow suffering through their lives with their adoptive family, just waiting to leave home so they can finally be where they belong, with people who are the same color as they are, people who approach the situation that way are ignorent. Their statements confuse both the parents and the kids. Their questions are awkward and the questioner is pitied. The questions they ask are questions they would NEVER ask about non-adopted children. The advice they give is NEVER the advice they would give regarding the non-adopted children. If they did, everyone would think they were inappropriate and weird. Somehow, though, people think it is okay to impose their questions and advice with respect to The Little Magpie. In front of The Little Magpie. As if she is some kind of dog or some kid we are babysitting. As if The Little Magpie agrees with them and is wondering the same thing. I’m here to tell you. The things you are asking about and talking about never cross her mind.
Congratulations, you have just succeeded in confusing a stranger’s child and possibly destroying their proper identity as a full member of the family. The Little Magpie has already been robbed of the best case scenario – a birth family who loves and nurtures her and brings her up to be a good person. Now you are taking it upon yourself to potentially rob her security in the only family she remembers living with, the only family she knows, the family she loves, the parents who would die in an instant in her place, the family that loves her and nurtures her and is bringing her up to be a good person. YOU were not courageous enough to take her as your own. You are a now acting immorally by laying your guilt upon an innocent baby with your questions and advice.
Now, I finished my printing at Kinko’s, and was gathering my kids and our things to leave. Then I heard it. The question. “Can I ask you a question?” Something inside me snapped. All those responses I have prepared and used over the years were replaced in that instant. All those confused conversations with The Little Magpie as we walked away from yet another stranger asking questions ended at that moment. I suddenly got it that I owe them nothing but one kindly stated word: “No.” No, stranger, you may not ask a question. No, stranger, it is not your business whose uterus grew this child, whose sperm snagged whose ovum. No, the circumstances of her separation from the owner of the aforementioned uterus are NOT your business. No, my child’s desire to wear that skirt and brush her own hair is not something I will discuss with you. No, the color of your skin does NOT give you any ownership over The Little Magpie.
No.
Then I walked out the door with my lovely, unique, free-spirited children, hair flying, torn clothes, some without shoes. And we were all very, very happy.
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